We know Larkin was a great admirer of JB's(and was not a great admirer generally)and, while Larkin's finest poems are a long way better than Betjeman's, I think Bejeman wrote a much larger number of pretty good poems, and that Larkin's "Collected" is, in general, a less rewarding read than Betjeman's.
Betjeman worked for the British Embassy in Dublin at one time and is widely believed to have been a spy (although probably of the cocktail party circuit type) which he probably was, and has written a few excellent poems about Ireland. He was an inveterate snob and fawner on the high and mighty, by all accounts, and his world is not my world, but I still think he was a wonderful poet of place, and London in particular.
Minor he may be, but I think poems (apart from those mentioned above) like "Myfanwy", "Middlesex", "Christmas"
"Slough" and "How To Get On In Society" will be around for a while yet.
Christmas
The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hooker's Green
The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that villagers can say
"The church looks nice" on Christmas Day
Provincial public houses blaze
And Corporation tramcars clang,
on lighted tenements I gaze
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
says "Merry Christmas to you all."
And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.
And girls in slacks remember Dad,
and oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad
And Christmas-morning bells say "Come!"
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.
And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremenduous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?
And is it true, For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare-
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.
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